I’m old enough to remember John Madden from his coaching days, but I must admit I can’t say I recall him roaming the sidelines for the Oakland Raiders.

In the 1970s, football, even the NFL, was not a sport where you received news on a daily, even hourly basis. There was no cable network dedicated exclusively to the league. If you were lucky, a team was featured on the Game of the Week on one of the networks.

Of course, you got to see the teams who made the playoffs and the Super Bowl, but things were not made into such gargantuan proportions as they are now.

My memories of Madden are that of an announcer and as one of the best in the business. We lost of the best last week when the big man decided to retire at age 73.

Madden gave up coaching out of a fear he developed for flying. Despite several successful seasons with Raiders, Madden reportedly was prone to have panic attacks on team flights and retired from coaching at age 43.

He went into broadcasting and while no one would have predicted it at the time, Madden became a Hall of Famer in another area of pro football. His teaming with Pat Summerall was brilliant although I admit I don’t know who the genius at CBS was who matched the two in the booth but the person certainly deserves a high degree of credit.

Madden, who was a character as a coach as one could tell by watching old NFL Films productions, carried that over into the booth as a color commentator. Sunday afternoons in the fall simply weren’t the same without watching the game Summerall and Madden were announcing.

The only drawback was they didn’t get to call many Falcon games since our team was usually not in playoff contention. Still, you wanted to hear Madden regardless of who was playing. That’s the mark of a quality announcer. When you sit and watch a game involving teams you have no loyalty to because of the color commentator then you know something special is coming out of your television speaker.

Summerall and Madden would both jump to FOX once CBS lost the rights to NFC games following the 1993 season. They continued on for a few more seasons before Madden eventually finished his career calling Sunday night games, most recently for NBC. His last game was the Super Bowl between the Steelers and the Cardinals.

As is the case with anyone who does something for three decades, Madden had detractors. However, I never grew tired of him. I hated to hear he had retired. Even casual pro football fans knew who he was and that says something about the power his voice had. His appeal carried over to commercials and his name is on one of the most popular video games ever.

While the team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are doing a solid job of becoming the new “Summerall and Madden,” the first is always the best. Sundays in the fall won’t be the same without the character of Madden.

The voice won’t be there for kickoff now, but after 30 years I can’t blame him for wanting a break.

Chris Bridges is sports editor of the Barrow Journal. E-mail comments about this column to cbridges@barrowjournal.com.

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